The Flood
by LifeIsTooShortEatIceCream
Summary: They would have been happy to stay like that forever, long after her shudders stopped, long after he had convinced himself that after days and nights of longing, he was actually holding her in his arms. Finnick/Annie, one-shot


**This is set after Finnick takes Annie to get help from her wounds she sustained from the torture, assuming that they stayed overnight in some hospital room or something. It's been a while since I read the books so I don't remember what actually happens. Anyways, enjoy...**

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The curtains were drawn in their little room. Beige walls, olive blankets. Green was supposed to be a calming color. It was the color of Annie's bruises in the dusk light drifting in from the open window.

Annie's limbs would not work. Finnick was next to her. Finnick was here. She kept telling herself this and every time the flood inside of her receded. But it was still there, so very much there, pressing from underneath her skin. She seemed incapable of moving, so scared as she was of coming undone. Screaming. Drowning. Blood would pour from her eyes. She knew it. The men from the Capital had hurt her for months, but it was here, in this hospital-regulation room, that his hands could unleash everything inside of her.

And she didn't wasn't Finnick to see that.

Was she really as crazy as they said she was?

_The Hurtman in the white suit put the knife to her skin and pressed. The knife went into her skin as if she was just the pale, creamy butter she ate as a child. She saw the frothy underneath layers of her skin. Blood gurgled from the cut. _

She didn't think she was crazy. But what did she know?

Nothing. She was a stupid little girl. Life had beaten a hole in her skull, and now all the bad poured in.

She musn't remember. She musn't remember.

_Hurtman's hands were on the skinny girl's arm. They iron-fisted her skin. Skinny girl writhed. The soft, white skin on the inside of her elbow bulged as Hurtman pulled, pulled and pulled, until there was a snap and her elbow bent backwards like the broken branch of a tree. Skinny girl's screams sounded like twisting metal and her eyes rolled-_

_"_Annie!"

Finnick. Finnick. Why was Finnick yelling at her? The corners of her eyes stung. There were red marks there, raw and stinging, where the salt from her tears wore down her skin.

Finnick was here. _That doesn't matter. That doesn't change what's happened._

No. No. She musn't remember. She musn't-

"Annie. Look at me. Look at me, honey, I'm here. I'm right here."

Annie realized that she was sinking, her knees no longer able to straighten, sinking to the ground while Finnick followed, his hands on her cheeks.

She looked into his eyes. Green. The calming color. Not like the sea. Brighter than the sea.

That never changed.

She realized that her hands here on her ears, clamped like vises and tangled in her hair, a futile attempt to block out the screams. She could not stop gasping. Her chest was being torn in half. Ripped like skin, like _neck skin fraying Hurtman ripping_-

"Annie." Finnick was crying, but only the lines down his cheeks showed it. His warm thumbs rubbed the tears away form her than the sea. Brighter than the sea. "It's going to be okay."

"No," she murmured, eyes unable to settle. "No, no, no-" her hands started to search for something to claw, something to rip, preferably herself. Why was she not dead? Why her? Why was that fair? Maybe if she clawed out her eyes she would no longer see-

"Annie," Finnick said again, barely more than a whisper, a broken promise. He was knelt next to her, his muscular body hunched protectively over her own, crumpled and propped by the wall. "Please, sweetheart, please, I-" His chest shook. "I don't know where you are. I can feel that I'm losing you. Please, Annie, please, I don't-I _can't _lose you again. I can't..."

_I'm not lost._

She wanted to scream it. To sob it, to burn it into her skin.

_Then why don't you, idiot? Why don't you, monster? Or maybe you've watched so many suffer, one more won't matter. It's just Finnick. Just the boy you-_

_The boy-_

_The boy you love-_

_You love so deeply it-_

_So deeply it hurts- _

NO.

She grasped her hands onto her thighs so they would stop shaking. She forced her eyes wide open.

She would not do this to Finnick. Not Finnick. Never him.

Finnick sensed a change coming over her, and did not know whether to hold her or to retreat. He wanted nothing more than to hold her. He wanted to bury his face in her hair, drink in the smell of her, enfold her in his arms and wrap up all of her demons inside of him and just hold her there so tight that she couldn't possibly be torn away from him ever again.

She looked so much smaller than he remembered. It hurt to look at her. It hurt to love her as much as he did.

"Finnick," she gasped. The thin sheet wrapped around her was wrinkled and damp with cold sweat. She wasn't sure what she wanted to say. She wasn't sure what could be said.

_hurtbloodpainskinnygirldeadonthefloor_

_"_Help me." It was an order. It was a pitiful plea. It was a sob. It was all she could thrust out before she could slip away again.

Finnick tore away the sheet, balling it up and throwing the chilled thing to the side. She was naked in front of him, all pale skin and ribs and hurt. It was like seeing a newborn bare in a pile of snow, and he hurried to pull the blanket from the bed and wrap it around her. He moved in soft, gentle movements, aware that she flinched every time hid skin touched hers.

His breaths were shallow and hot, a need more than anything he'd felt in his life burning in him. He needed to be near her. He needed to hold her. He would hold her together with his bare hands. He would _make _her okay.

Finnick cradled Annie's head in his hand, murmuring all the while, hushing her, comforting little things that he had learned long ago on the beach when she had first lost herself. She folded to his touch, limp and shaking and burning on the inside.

She listened to his voice, felt the urgency in his movements as he tucked her into his lap, bent his legs so that she was nestled on every side. He told her he loved her. Over and over again. Everything would be okay. Everything would be all right. He would never leave again.

The flood ebbed.

She started to cry. But not the coughing, hacking cries that came with screams and memories and hurt. It was gentle, like rain. Like gentle waves, lapping, washing away.

She held onto his shirt with a grip too strong for such weak hands, arms folded between her chest and his, cheek pressed to the skin on beneath on his neck. His head was bent, lips brushing her temple every time she shook. The warmth of their breaths mixed, and she gasped him in. Their limbs were tangled, pressing together wherever they could.

They stayed like that for a very long time. They would have been happy to stay like that forever, long after her shudders stopped, long after he had convinced himself that after days and nights of longing, he was actually holding her in his arms.

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**One-shot! I'm probably going to do a bunch with them, because Finnick's death makes me feel physical pain and I don't understand how Suzanne Collins could have done this, so I guess I'll just write about it. **


End file.
